When, one after another, the enemies plundered us,
And the sacred deed was reduced to ashes—
Soulless and sold, O France, thou wast the first
To calumniate our martyred people!
Before our pain thy heart was not moved—
But thou didst spit in the face of the Crucifix!
Such a state of mind, of course, was diligently fostered in Bulgaria by Austrians and Germans alike. Soon there were accounts from credible sources of the massing in Bulgaria of huge stores of German munitions, and even of German uniforms. Some of these munitions were undoubtedly intended for the beleaguered Turk, and Bulgaria became notorious for the ease with which these warlike stores could be smuggled through a neutral country. Indeed, so openly was the passage made that the word smuggled is wildly inappropriate.
At this period Bulgaria entertained a new guest, Prince Henry of Reuss. He had not always been as friendly to his brother-in-law, the Czar of Bulgaria, as that potentate considered compatible with his own dignity and peculiar merits. But now he had to complain of no lack of friendliness on the part of the Lutheran Prince, or of his royal master who had dispatched him to Sofia.
The Germans at this period were good customers of Bulgaria. The wheat crop had been a bountiful one, and never had the Bulgarian farmers received such prices for their harvest. They found that a European war spelled prosperity for them, though there were signs that the garnering of the wheat would be followed by one of those grim harvests with which Bulgaria has recently been only too familiar.
Then German officers appeared in the streets of Sofia in increasing numbers. They were discernible everywhere, though they made as little display as possible of their uniforms; and when a German officer appears in civil garb there must be some deep reason for the self-denial.